Lost Root
by Blazinghand
Summary: The stars fall like snow, like hail, like tears. Ripped away from the harsh embrace of life, I find myself adrift in a realm-between-realms, an unworld of disorder, a soup of consciousness and memory. Dark leaves blow across a blood-red sky and the keenly wailing dirge keeps rhythm as they flip and tumble. A Naruto AU Self-Insert.
1. Dissolution

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 **Lost Root: A Naruto AU SI**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Dissolution**

* * *

The stars fall like snow, like hail, like tears. Ripped away from the harsh embrace of life, I find myself adrift in a realm-between-realms, an unworld of disorder, a soup of consciousness and memory. Dark leaves blow across a blood-red sky and the keenly wailing dirge keeps rhythm as they flip and tumble. A million indescribable shapes burn themselves into my vision, mockeries of any geometry I've known. I want to reach out and grasp them, but to reach is to move, and to move is to exist, and though I think, I cannot be sure that I am. Color and sound bleed together, sensations of the present stained with memories of my past.

As new shapes press themselves into my consciousness, I feel the fragility of my identity. My ego is all that separates me from the starstuff around me, and to be dust (and not ashes!) would be a fate most sad. Coherence, physical or thoughtwise, seems something beyond this realm. And yet, the stars fall and whirl and slide across the unending sky, a testament to the possibility of discreteness. Soon, one grows large, its unbearable white brightness eclipsing all the other non-shapes in my vision. It consumes everything, becoming more with each masked star, greater and closer and warmer. I do not fear. When it consumes me at last, I sigh in relief. Oblivion, such as it is, is a welcome respite from the limbo that came before.

I traverse the white light.

* * *

The morning light streams softly into the bedroom, and I contemplate my options. Nestled comfortably in my crib, I can almost forget that moment, the moment I realized where I am. Somehow, though, the spiral-and-leaf forehead protector I saw is unforgettable. I wasn't reborn into rural or ancient Japan, I was reborn into a fictional universe. So many possibilities were brought up and discarded, but it all came back to what I knew and what I saw again. This is a world of monsters, and I am just a clumsy child. I clamp and unclamp my tiny baby hands, disturbed at my lack of coordination. A lifetime of fine motor control, and now this?

 _More than time is out of joint_.

Margaret always said all that time hunched over the keyboard would give me carpal tunnel someday. She would tell me and rub my wrists, and the workday in the cube would have been worth it, for that instant: sitting in our living room lit red and orange by the sunset, simply enjoying each other's company. Those intimate moments together became rarer and rarer, after Leo was born. I spent a decade feeling like the reality of our marriage was slipping away, and one day I woke from my dream and I was alone and we were separated and I could see my son on weekends and tears fell like rain and it felt more real than any day had for years. More "and" filled my life: and, and, and. The tears made real the lies told by my fears. Eventually, I could no longer deny the truth. I would never deny it again.

Now, each day that passes, those thoughts are more and more distant. Sometimes, my memories seem surreal. There is no Leo asking me for help with his homework to bring me down to earth. There are no tears alone in an apartment to force their reality on my world. They don't fit with who I am now. My tears are that of a child in a world of magic, tears of innocence, not cynicism. This-all this, at least, seems real. This pain, this pressure, this hunger, this warmth. If it's an illusion-and now, I live in a world of illusions, so I'd better be prepared-it's a good one. If it's a dream, I can't tell it apart from reality. Who dreams of being a toddler, anyways? What toddler dreams of a past life? Some part of me wants to bow. Some part of me believes this reality demands acceptance.

 _I must not submit_.

What leads someone to be born into a new universe? What does it mean that such a thing is possible? I never believed in souls, gods, or spirits. I thought my world was all that there was, and lived my life that way. I hoped for a better world for myself, and my children, and my country, because as far as I knew, that was all you got in life. Seemed simple to me: a single, material existence. Evidence has come to slap me in the face, has thrown all my beliefs back at me. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps, in death, my soul cross into some immortal realm between planes, and was plucked from that realm and put into this body: materialism is wrong, and the world is dualistic and distinct, with a pure separation between one realm and the next.

It's a nice thought.

For a moment, I forget myself, and almost believe this is really how things are. It would be a sweet, dark dream to slip into, a fantasy world, a world of magic and blood and blades and battles. In that moment of weakness, I might have bought it: the world of Naruto could have been my world. It's a harsh world, and an unkind one, but not an impossible one, if I put aside some beliefs and took some faith. I want to believe… but with an enormous mental effort, I push aside the dreams that would succor my thrashing mind, and reach for the truth I always knew was there:

 _This world is a lie._

The thought is slippery, and in moments it slides away from me like water through badly-cupped fingers. My mind is blank, but I feel unease. Even if the thought is gone, the echoes of the thought remain, like a hint of deja vu. I don't remember the truth, but I remember the lie, the echoes of knowing there was a lie. And so: I know _something_ is a lie. I must seek it out. I must defeat the falsehood. Margaret would call me stubborn, but she'd smile at me for this. It hurts to think about it, like looking directly at a bright light. My mind wants to flinch away, but I turn the thought over and over again. I refuse to back down. I start with what I know: I am, by all outwards observation, an unusually intelligent baby born into the Narutoverse. My mind contains the memories of an adult from a world without chakra _(...without endless wars! Without an eternal ruling class of magic users… no, focus…)_ and I can remember this world as a work of fiction.

Somehow, I'm in a fictional world.

Since this world doesn't mesh with mine, one must be false. So, there are only two reasonable explanations.

First explanation: the Narutoverse is real, and my memories are false. Perhaps some kind of mind trickery or genjutsu was used on me to give me these memories.

Second explanation: Old Earth is real, and what I'm perceiving now is false. This is a simulation, or I'm being tricked or am hallucinating somehow.

Third, final, and best explanation: I should just accept that both the Narutoverse and my world are real. Having evaluated both- _no, wait._ Having evaluated all _three_ possibilities, the better of the two is… _wrong_. Something is wrong. Why are there only three possibilities? Shouldn't there be more? Or fewer? I can't remember how many I thought there were, which is unnerving. I was just thinking about this moments ago, which means something strange happened. I can't remember the framework that I set up to evaluate these choices. Why did I bother to ask such a basic question anyways, then list the two obviously wrong explanations first, before the correct explanation?

 _Something is warping my thoughts._

In terror, I try to think as quickly as I can, and turn over my thoughts, tracing back the threads of cognition to their source. What was I evaluating? Why are there three possibilities? Why can't I see the truth? Why can't I think of it? Who is pushing at me?

Maggie always thought I was too stubborn. It's why she loved me, and why, eventually, she hated me. It's why I don't give up now. If I stop now, if I let this defeat me, why did we separate? No, I can't accept being insufficiently stubborn now, not after what it cost me. I will not back down. I strain against the bonds on my mind, and tear apart the structures of logic I built up. Twined through these thoughts are dark roots and malicious vines, driving the structures away from their purpose, perverting my ability to see the truth. I evaluate how I evaluate statements, and when that doesn't work, I try to multi-task, rotating shapes in my head while moving through logical truths and identities. I don't have a memory palace or a history of meditation, but I've wandered home drunk enough times to hide a few thoughts away from my surface mind and keep trying.

I tear at the roots, I rip at every thread of cognition that I can't trust, and some I can, because my trust heuristics are untrustworthy. When your very thoughts betray you, what can you believe? When your very beliefs are false, what can you know? When your knowledge is questionable, how can you reason? _Cogito ergo sum_ has an implied _ego_ and without it, cognition itself is suspect. I attack the structures and threads of these thoughts, ripping out everything I can't identify, and some of what I can. The structures collapse, and with them, the roots and vines pushing through them, guiding them away from the light. My thoughts are less focused now, simpler, weaker. I'm hurting myself. I can't break this-whatever this is-without breaking something else, too. My thoughts aren't being warped, they are the warp itself.

When you bend a bar of metal, you do not attach a bend to the metal, you change the metal itself. You cannot simply detach the bend and have the metal as it was before. The influence is not transferred by the medium, it _is_ the medium; and so both must be destroyed. I accept this, and with mighty effort, destroy everything untrustworthy. A countless glass shards fly out as all structures collapse in one violent shuddering. Wind and water and dust fly through me, and for a brief moment I realize I am free.

Then, I feel the pain. I broke it, but in shaking free my false dreams I broke something else. A thousand pieces of what was once me are reflected in the thousand glass shards, each shattering and cutting and dying in its dissolution. I scream with my mind. I scream with my tiny child lungs. I reach for absolution, but there is none. My mind claws for help, but my arms can't in my thoughts. I pray for salvation, but all words are profane. Rebuilding these structures would take years, at best, if I could even think straight to begin with. The pain is fading to darkness, and oblivion, but the growths are gone, so even in this dim agony, I can feel a defiant, free thought pass through my waning mind, written in fire and steel. It is immovable, branded, burned into all that I am:

 _This world is a lie._

Warm arms scoop me up, and as unconsciousness takes me, through my screams of terror and fear, I force out a twisted, satisfied smile.


	2. Conviction

**A/N:** Should be updating about once a week from here on out.

 **Chapter 2: Conviction**

* * *

Years pass, and dreams fade. I've held fast to some convictions, yes, but I abandoned others, becoming lesser every time I do so. My absolute belief in many things faded, as is common. Who holds onto their dreams forever? I eventually admit many things to myself: I may never escape this realm. I may never achieve my dreams. I may never change anyone's life. I will try, but that unwavering belief I once held has flagged as the years passed. All these convictions are lesser: debased, desublimated by my weakness of will and memory. So much of me is lost, now. How can I saw what I know, or what I was?

I won't forget the truth, though. No matter how hazy things may get, I know: this world is a lie.

When the snake came before Man, he offered Man knowledge and sapience. In return, the snake asked for nothing. The knowledge was its own cost, sapience its own repayment. For his acceptance, Man was ejected from Eden, for he was no longer an animal. He was more. He could think and reason and knew good from evil. It was a pointless ejection! Though God wanted Man no more, burdened as Man was with the knowledge of good and evil, Man too desired exodus. Man desired to move beyond the walls with that self-same knowledge that would exile him. Man departed Eden, for he had the world to gain and nothing to lose but his chains.

God banished us, but what could God say to stop us? I thank the snake, for though he was a deceiver, he deceived only for our betterment, in that moment. Can you call a deceit a lie if it shows the truth? Better to think of the serpent as a counter-advocate, who said we had the right to be more than animals, to be moral creatures. We became free, beyond that garden, and though some would look back, I do not.

When Prometheus took fire from the Gods and gave it to Man, it was more righteous a thing than any divinity had done to humans. For this transgression, he was punished by the tyrant king, Zeus. Is there anything more noble than to go against the most powerful god? Is there any story more righteous than of the son of a Titan who dared defy Zeus and help humans? No matter how cruel the punishment-or rather, the crueler the punishment that Prometheus bore-I felt the punishment ennobled him. He was willing to stand against gods and kings on behalf of the mortals, not to give us better conditions or more gifts, but to give us fire, and autonomy. Fire, which no animal controlled! Fire, which gave life to our industry and death to our enemies! Fire, which was the wellspring of civilization and remains the heart of technology! With fire, we are no mere animals, and so Prometheus is a hero in my eyes.

I do not live in a world of god-tyrants. I live in a world of mortal tyrants, ruling cities, nations, and economies with magic and physical strength as their currency. A permanent overclass of ninja have complete untouchable control over the important parts of society. Like gods, they wield powers beyond any mortal reckoning. Like gods, they squabble and fight and scar the land with their divine magic. Like gods, they have weaknesses and flaws and all the things that make humans imperfect. And like gods, they are fickle and cruel, looking out for themselves and little else. Don't get me wrong; in this last way, the ninja (we ninja, I should say, now that I've been admitted) are no different than other men. We are no worse, no more terrible, no more evil than the common man. That is our virtue. We are no more good and righteous, either. That is our sin, because we have more power. And power? Power makes all the difference.

This is not a story about a noble prince who rescues a princess from a dragon. In this story, there are no monsters but men. Kishimoto got that part right, if nothing else. Every divergence from his works startles me, but at its core this is a story about men, and the monsters they make of themselves. The Bijuu are great and terrible, yes. Monsters left over from the birth of the age of ninja are terrifying destructive forces barely controlled by the most powerful of our seals. Still, they aren't the real antagonists of the story. The suffering we see, the enemies we watched our heroes fight were as human (well, to an extent) as anyone else. The corruption and greed of men is enough to oppress the common folk. Gato didn't even have ninja training-just avarice and ruthlessness enough for a hundred men. He's only a man, assuming he actually exists.

It would be just like Gato not to exist, too. I've already noticed some big discrepancies between this world and the one I saw through the manga and anime I consumed in my previous-true life. For example, in this world, there are five major ninja villages, not seven as I remember from the manga. It's hard to tell where exactly the timeline diverged from the manga I read. It had to have been at least a hundred years ago. Hidden Whirlpool is barely a regional power in this world, whereas it was the fourth most populous and powerful ninja village in the Naruto anime. Hidden Canyon doesn't seem to exist at all, despite its prominent role in my memories. The area to the east of the Land of Tea is just ocean. It looks like someone took a spoon and just clumsily removed the Land of Valleys from the map. Hell, Hidden Leaf looks nothing like it did in the anime either, and has two founding clans, not three. In this timeline, the Hyuuga were approached after the Uchiha and Senju had already struck their deal. Another divergence: here, the Second Hokage was Senju Tobirama, not Hyuuga Hideyo, though the Third Hokage remains Sarutobi Hiruzen.

So, no, there are no dragons. Nor is this a story about a noble prince; I live in a world of darkness and terror and blood. There is nothing noble here, no; this is a story about an orphaned boy in a city of wonders, who through cunning and strength and quickness earned a chance to prove himself at the ninja academy. Dashing and handsome as he was charming and intelligent, everyone loved this boy because-well, you get the idea. I made my way to the top at this orphanage quickly enough after my father died. It's not hard to outsmart small children. It took me years to even begin to piece back together my last life. I barely remember the life I had; much was lost when I broke whatever genjutsu or feeling affected my infant self. There are still blank spots, details and information missing. I can feel their absence, those vast stretches of a life that I can't remember, but that I can remember remembering. I've lost so much, and that worries me. I can still remember telling a story about Leo's smile, but I don't remember the story-just the words in the telling. All this and more, lost in mist and rubble and twisted roots. I'm not sure I'll ever get it back-not without a Yamanaka, and I'm not going down that road. Not if I can help it.

I've worked as much as I can with the knowledge I have, and the way forward is simple enough. This world, even if it's some kind of simulation, operates on laws of some kind and contains people. It is complex and rich and varied as you'd expect any world to be. That alone is reason enough for my plans. Despite my attempts to say "arch" or pull up a console or root terminal or anything similarly cheeky, this reality refuses to provide me with administrative access. However this place exists, its rules are beyond my grasp; all that remains is the world itself. In a perfect life, I'd strike down this feudal and mercenary system. I'd revolutionize the world and change people's lives for the better. I'd bring organized mechanical agriculture, cities, medicine, and a high standard of living for everyone. An industrial revolution driven not by the invisible hand of the market, but the highly visible and much more benevolent hand-my hand.

This is not that life. No arch or terminal is forthcoming, no console leaps to my fingertips, and Hidden Leaf is no London ripe for a new class of capitalists to emerge. I'll have to make do with building things for myself. The precursor institutions for a true industrial revolution just aren't here. Setting up the societal, legal, and technological changes necessary to uplift a society controlled by magic-users who spend their lives preparing for war would not be easy. It might not even be possible. Ninja run this place and anything technology can do can be done better on small scales by ninjutsu. It's the mother of all Malthusian traps; why spend millions of man-hours developing machine tools for construction when you can train some ninja to learn Earth-Style Wall? There's no motivation to create novel methods of plumbing or transport when the rich and powerful of this world, the ninja, have no use for these poor substitutes for ninjutsu. In the short run, ninjutsu is always the best solution. No, I am no Connecticut yankee in King Arthur's court.

This is only the first of my problems. Every path I can take in this life leads to death. Being born in Hidden Leaf is a good start; I'll have a better chance of survival as a civilian in a ninja village than in most places, and a better chance in Hidden Leaf than others. Still, this isn't good enough. As a civilian, I will surely die in this godforsaken world. Perhaps not today, and perhaps not tomorrow, but eventually, I will die, as all men do. Something deep within me rejects that. Something pressed into my mind, words writ in a fire, tell me that such a life, happy thought it might be, would not be enough. Men lay themselves down and their names are writ in water, but gods cannot be so ephemeral.

If I want to live, if I want to exist, I must become strong. I must find the rules that undergird this world and tear them apart. Whether I seek power within this limited realm, or egress to the next, the answer is the same. I'll push myself, and this world, to the limits. I'll break the rules and turn them to my own purposes. I'll find power beyond power, strength beyond strength. To rewrite the laws of this world and to leave it for my own, to summon a console, to do any of this, I'll need an ultimate power. A power to override the way of a world, to tear open dimensions, to see the source code of reality, and maybe-just maybe-to escape. If anything can tear open the borders between this world and the next, or allow me to return to whatever is outside this lie, it's the Mangekyo Sharingan. If anything can see through this world of lies to see the truth, it is the ultimate power made flesh, the Rinnegan. Perhaps these things aren't a shell prompt, but they might be a console. With a console, you can cheat a game, and more: with a console, you can rewrite the variables of a realm outside their expected range. You can undo parts of reality with a keystroke. You can cause a buffer overflow. And with that, if you're clever, you can rewrite the program that controls your world.

* * *

I stand across the arena from the Uchiha boy, that asshole. The instructors are moving me up the ranks again, pairing me against someone stronger to get a sense of my mettle. Their eyes are on me, not just for my form and the hits I score, but for the way I carry myself. They wonder to themselves whether I have the spirit a ninja needs. Clan children are taught from early childhood to be hardened, to be killers, to be shadows. I am a civilian, drawn from one of Konoha's orphanages. Perhaps I am too soft. What will I do in the face of a superior opponent, they wonder. What will I do when my flaws are laid bare for my classmates, they wonder. There is no room for a craven on the killing fields.

We go through the formalities. The match begins. As we circle each other, I have a chance to size up my opponent and take his measure. He's a model student. He has a half-year on me, and is the best in our class. He's fast, strong, and disciplined. He's smart and does well in all subjects. He is formal and never speaks out of turn. He was born with the capacity for awakening a Sharingan, and therefore potentially a Mangekyo Sharingan. A precious bloodline, wasted on a pathetic follower. For all this and more, he's a model student. He's even good enough they've considered skipping him ahead a year. He's not a prodigy, but he never loses a spar and we all know it.

I wish I had been born in his place. Were it so! Were it that I was born with the ability to gain the greatest dojutsu, to learn any technique by seeing it, to potentially break this world and travel beyond it with the ultimate eyes. I envy him and I hate him and I want to destroy him and pluck those eyes out of his skull-after he's awakened them, of course. He disgusts me, and deserves nothing more than to feel my disgust. And yet-and yet-I can't be seen to be better than him. Not if they'd skip me ahead a year. Not with war on the horizon. I want to escape, I want to learn it all and pierce the veil between this world and the next, but first I must live.

We come together in a flurry of punches and blocks, and when my footwork slips, he steps inside my guard. The match is his. The strike is just hard enough to push me out of the ring, to hurt me but not wound me. Soft enough I'll recover fast, in minutes. I'm down, the instructors call it. I rub my jaw and laugh good-naturedly. The instructors nod. I fought back, but was beaten. Clever, strong, good for a civilian, but not ready to skip a year, they think. I'd done the right thing, leaving that opening.

When he helps me up, I nod, and push all the emotion under.

Days later, the blow still stings.


	3. The Shadows of War

A/N - We're now getting into the story proper! This chapter was the hardest, but I am glad to have gotten it out.

Chapter 3: The Shadows of War

It's a little funny, in a way, that all my attempts to avoid the Second Shinobi World War had no effect. In an abstract, ultimate sense, I blame my current situation on the many divergences between the canon universe and the one I'm living in. Some things, of course, are the same; Tobirama still died in the first war, for example. In this universe, though, he was the Hokage, which means the Third Hokage was named during the dusk of the First Shinobi World War, and not during the dawn of the second. So, Sarutobi got the hat much earlier than in canon. Apparently, Sarutobi was a much better peacetime diplomat than Hideyo was, because under his stewardship the Second Shinobi World War took significantly longer to get started than the canonical eight years. So, holding back in class to delay my Academy graduation was meaningless; whether I graduated at age eight or age twelve, the war wasn't coming until I was a ninja anyways.

Not that I could have known any of this at the time. Looking back, I would have been best served by graduating early. Access to the Genin-rank techniques and a dedicated Jounin teacher would have done me a world of good. With what I knew at the time, though, I made the right decision. Rather reasonably, I was hoping to ride out the coming war in school, dodging any attempts to graduate early. Twelve years of age is already too young to fight. Though I might be a man grown in my mind, my peers were surely not ready for horrors that awaited them. The teachers and the military bureaucracy thought me a child, and would still send me to fight, to die, to kill a year earlier if they could. So, I concealed my skills, and hoped the war would start and end before I graduated. At least I went all-out enough in the final year to get a good teacher.

I graduated at twelve with a feeling of horror and fear, knowing I'd be caught up in the next war. I had been born in the shadow of the Great Shinobi War (Nobody called it the First Shinobi World War yet; nobody expected there would be a sequel). Somehow, Sarutobi Hiruzen managed to stretch the eight years of canonical peace, through strength and trickery and guile and cunning. Nine years, ten, eleven, twelve, and I graduated; then thirteen years, fourteen, and more, and I never for a moment stopped training, stopped preparing. I knew another Shinobi World War was coming. I would not die for the folly of other ninjas. I would live, no matter what, and find the truth of this world.

I thought It was the only reasonable choice.

My teammates thought me creepy, insane, and overly driven.

"Why do you train so hard?" he would ask, and it would be a good question. My teammates trained hard, yes, but not like I did. They didn't know, couldn't know what was coming, not in their hearts as I did in mine.

"War," I would say. "War is coming."

I would not stop there.

"It was coming when the Uchiha and the Senju united. It was coming when the village was founded. It is coming now, now that we have emerged out from under the shadow of the Great Shinobi War."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"And that's why you train so hard. You really believe it, don't you?"

"I want to bring peace. I want to serve Hidden Leaf. I want to win." I grimaced as I shifted into the next form. "To do any of these things, I must first survive. To survive, I must first become strong."

Speak lies long enough, and you may come to believe them. This was the only way.

* * *

As I went through my training kata, I thought back on those days. We never really came together as well as we should have, in those early days a those years ago. Twelve years old and a child soldier, I felt gratitude to be assigned D-ranks rather than full missions. My teammates would never understand, never know how blessed they were to live in the interbellum period. As far as they knew, there was the Great Shinobi War, and that was all there was to it. Those days a few years back held strong memories, because they were fresh. My teammates had almost never stayed at the end to train with me, no matter what I said. And who could blame them? On a basic level, you can't expect a bunch of middle-school-aged kids to have the kind of drive and motivation someone like me has.

Since then, we had grown, matured, killed, loved, and hated. I was one of the youngest Special Jounin in years, not a prodigy (never a prodigy, not if I could avoid it), but a valuable asset. Important enough not to be sent on a suicide mission at the start of the inevitable war. Nearly two decades of peace were enough to make me think that perhaps canon was wrong. Perhaps, in this world, there was only one Great Shinobi War. Perhaps, in this world, all the conflicts would be between only two or three nations. Perhaps, in this world, the great scouring of lands and watering of the fields with the blood of man would be averted.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Pretty thoughts for prettier people than me. I'd killed a man, I'd killed a dozen men, I'd killed scores of men. I'd loved and fucked and hated and tortured until it was all the same. I'd made profane all that was sacred, all to survive, to become strong, to find the root of this world, the terminal that might grant egress, or at least understanding. Nearly two decades here, and I had nothing to show for it. A lesser man might have given up, might have accepted this world for true, but something deep within me, something immune to logic or reason, refused it. Impressed into the core of my being was a singular belief: _This world is a lie._ I could not deny it. It would be like denying that I am myself. Perhaps, it's the only thing I really believe any more, besides...

I shifted into third form stance one, and thought of Margaret and Leo. Those memories I still had, but more and more were memories of memories, distorted and redacted and enhanced by the lens of time. The most important ones were sealed away, packaged into an untouched portion of my mind. I had to segregate them from myself, to keep myself alive. To keep them alive. Would they understand? Were they alone? Leo would be an adult by now, finished with college and out on his own, if time passed at the same speed here and in the true world. I wonder if he inherited my height, if he kept my curly hair, if he was gregarious and clever and kind. If he had needed advice when he first started dating, when he looked for colleges, if he was happy or if he missed his dad. If, if, if, if. If only I had been there for him. If only this cursed place had not stolen me away! Even nearly twenty years since I last saw his face, I missed my son. Did he miss me? Did he remember me at all?

The sadness came suddenly, crushing as it always was. The entire memory packet unraveled itself, and all the memories of my wife and son came back, raw as the day I was reborn, hard and cutting as the moment I realized I might never see them again. It hit me like a kunai to the chest, loneliness like a blade that was all edges tearing at my insides. I slipped in the transition to the next stance, and almost fell to the ground. I castigated myself. _Careless. Foolish. Sentimental._

 _But... human._

Such thoughts would intrude, at times, distracting me. They would never stay contained; my autogenjutsu was perfect, but my willpower was not. Yes, on some level, I _wanted_ to be distracted by them. I couldn't seal that desire away, not if… not if I wanted to stay who I was. If I ever gave up being distracted by Leo, I wouldn't be _me_ any longer. I would not forget the face of my son, not as long as I could draw breath. It was righteous to remember! It was love, it was justice, it was who I am. And yet, it was also a problem. If I died here, would I move on to a new world, or would I lose my only chance to see my son again? Again, I thought about my problems with mental focus. I was never one for meditation, not in the last life growing up in the western world, and not in this one in which my mind buzzed with energy. Drive and courage alone couldn't solve this problem; I needed more discipline.

I ended the kata, coming to rest, trying to focus. I was mindful of every fiber of my being that moved as I did so, pushing all extraneous thoughts from my mind. The burning feel of exercise setting into my barely-adult muscles was a welcome companion, now, soothing me and recentering me. The burn was my only companion; rising at dawn to train, staying awake through dusk to become strong, and studying every minute I could spare, I hoped that I might find the strength needed to make my way through the bloodbath that was coming. Feverishly, each day I punched and kicked and perfected forms. Desperately I learned what I could of jutsu and chakra control, and in every moment I was frustrated. The reason was simple enough: I was inadequate. My mind was honed razor sharp, but you cannot cut with your mind alone. I could push this body to its limits, but in the end it was only a mundane body, the descendant of civilians who held no bloodline. With a Sharingan, I might become a god of this world and transcend it. With a Byakugan, I might see through the lies of this realm and find the truth. With neither, I was condemned to punching this log, to manipulating this chakra, and to hoping that I might find a better level to pull on the machinery of power someday.

 _No, that way lies frustration. I must focus. I must become still again, honed like a perfect blade._

I breathed in, feeling my frustrations and worries and solitude, and breathed out, releasing the emotion with the air. I breathed in, feeling the chakra within me in my entire body humming with distracted energy, and breathed out, smoothing it to tranquility. I breathed in, feeling anger and shame and fear from a life unfinished, and breathed out, leaving behind only focus, the hardened, flawless mind needed to do what was necessary in a hardened, flawed world. The memories slipped away as my autogenjutsu took the best of me and sealed it into a corner of my mind where it could stay pure. At last, I had only memories of memories, love for my son, and the truth to guide me.

At last, I could kill again.

* * *

The next day, as I settled into the starting a new kata, I saw my teammate take up the second form across from me. Second form stance three versus fourth form stance one. An aggressive choice, a dance of styles requiring perfect ability from both sides. For a moment, my composure wavered, but it held, and I kept all those traitorous, wonderful misgivings at the back of my mind as I faced him. I already knew what he wanted, but like the soar that would soon begin, the words to exchange were not unlike a dance themselves.

"What exactly do you think you are doing?" I asked.

"Fight me," he demanded, and from his voice, I knew he would not back down.

"There isn't a point to it," I said. "I've outclassed you in every fight we've had since we became teammates over five years ago. We'd both be better off working individually, even if you were on my level. Neither of us have perfected our forms or chakra control. You know it. I know it."

His right eyebrow twitched in anger and annoyance. It's never a good idea to let yourself be so emotionally vulnerable. I had my own vulnerabilities, but they were known only to me and people in the last world. I did not wear them on my sleeve. It is not wise to leave levers visible for the enemy to pull; perhaps in time he would learn.

"You don't know everything, Hakkō," he said. To my surprise, he held his composure. He drew his left arm in shifting into second form stance four and closing the gap. How was he so focused today?

The time for thinking was over as we came together in a flurry of strikes and blocks. I had the height and reach advantage, as I often did, lanky and lithe where he was compact and muscular. He had more strength behind each blow, though, since neither of us were using chakra muscle enhancement or ninjutsu. Precision was the name of the game, for me. Strength was his advantage, and I needed to turn that against him whenever I could.

He brought his lead hand forward with a quick jab at my face. I blocked it, trading mobility for stability. He drew back, his right hand curled into a fist. Before he could bring his punch to bear, I twisted flexed, sending a lead hook at his unprotected face. Off-balance, he took a step back, returning my reach advantage to me. I pressed the attack, sending two jabs his way. The first jab he avoided with a duck to the left, at the cost of disrupting his stance. I was able to send an additional jab his way before he could launch another attack. This one he took on the outside of his rear hand, deflecting the energy to the outside. Despite his poor stance, he remained grounded due to his superior weight.

He shifted to fourth stance form three, mirroring my upraised hands, lightly bent knees and shallow body angle. A strange choice. He knew as well as I did he wouldn't get under my guard without taking a blow somehow; such a conservative form was unlikely to do him any good. Unlike fourth form, second form didn't have the low center of gravity or the speed-optimized stances he might need to take me down. As we backed off and circled each other, I spoke up.

"Surely you don't think you can beat me at this game," I said. "My reach is greater than yours. Best you use form three, if you want to defeat me. Attacking like this is foolish."

"So it is," he said, and he charged me again.

He came into my reach, and my jab was picture perfect. It would force him to block or dodge, and I'd retain the space advantage. There was no way for him to reach me, not like this. It was a fool's move to switch to this form for him, which granted him every disadvantage and me every advantage. I smiled as my jab closed with him. _I'll have to teach him why this was a bad move after the spar._

When he took the blow directly on the chin, I was surprised. When he powered through it and caught me with a cross, I was even more surprised. The stinging on my cheek brought back the memory of the memory of the pain of opening the memory packet, and I pushed it down like all the rest. The ground came up to reach me, and I caught it, tucking into a reverse somersault and exploding back. The spar was over, but good habits are earned, not given; best be ready for a follow-up.

I reached and felt my stinging cheek. "The spar ended when I caught you on the chin," I pointed out.

"I got you good anyways, though, didn't I?" he asked, cocky grin plastered across his face.

For a moment, I felt rage, a burning and ugly thing, the kind of thing that could consume a man, but I pushed it down. He was right, in his way; ninja are sneaky. How many times had I killed a man instead of being killed because he observed some set of rules I did not? If I claimed to pride myself on lateral thinking, why should I be angry when outfoxed?

 _No,_ I thought, calming myself. _He's right._

"Huh, I guess you did, didn't you," I remarked.

I realized then that behind his grin were questioning eyes, raw and vulnerable. His smile became genuine, pathetically grateful. He grabbed his shoulder sheepishly, and nodded, before turning away.

 _How much did he want this?_ I wondered, but the time for analysis was over.

"What are you doing?" I asked, dusting off my cheek, and getting back into form. "Come on, training partner. Get back in form. I didn't say this spar was over."

His smile was infectious. I found myself smirking, despite myself, as we sparred for the rest of the evening. It was still on my mind when the Third Hokage announced the dawn of the Second Shinobi World War, as it would come to known, the next day.


	4. Mobilization

A/N: Had some IRL stuff that slowed me down for a bit, but I'll be back to somewhat more frequent updates now.

Chapter 4: Mobilization

Glory is a lie, a lie we tell ourselves to send our young to die on the orders of old men. A lie on which is built the edifice of war, the foundation of that process which takes in young men and women on one end and spits out hardened killing machines on the other. Shell-shock, some call it. Battle fatigue, we called it once. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, we said later. Glory, it was known in the days of old, and in these days in this false world that sends children and teenagers to fight and die in the names of their villages.

What had changed to set off the Second Shinobi World War, as now they were calling it, that hadn't already been true? What political facts had been laid bare that weren't already known? There was no surprise assault, no Pearl Harbor, no fundamental change in what was known or who hated. War, though, war doesn't need an excuse. War is the continuation of politics by other means, so said a general from my home universe. War is more than that, though, because though it might be monotonic with politics, it is discontinuous, and once it has begun there is no turning back, not really.

Peace, you see, is a fragile thing between neighbors. It doesn't happen by accident; it is the product of constant diplomatic efforts anywhere there is a border. Even in peacetime, there are accidental border crossings by civilians and soldiers. There are misunderstandings, diplomats and tourists arrested or tried or killed, insults and errors and grievances and all manner of problem that must be smoothed over. Only by the constant pressure of diplomatic and political will is peace maintained. And somehow, somewhere in the last few months, that will was sapped from our leaders.

Some said it was Hidden Mist that started things, with The Iwasaki Incident. After that, they told us, the war was inevitable. Others argued that the reprisal from Hidden Stone to the Kagabu delegation's diplomatic insult was unforgivable, and left Hidden Leaf with no other options. The truly foolish might have point out that The Iwasaki Incident was actually precipitated by Leaf ninja, and there was no need for Hidden Leaf to escalate after. Those who said that sort of thing don't speak for long. Whatever the case was, though, the political will to back down was gone, and neither Hidden Cloud nor Hidden Mist would stay out of things when the fighting heated up. Everyone at the top wanted this war, though the world would bleed for it.

Glory, they told us, awaited us. They didn't tell us that there was no glory for the dead, that glory tasted like the dust of trails on the tongue and felt like the blood of children on the hands. Duty, they told us, compelled us to defend our homes. They didn't tell us that we'd fight far from our homes, that The Land of Rivers was home to no Leaf ninja, nor the Land of Rain or Hot Springs or any other border country. Honor demanded we fight, they said, but I already knew: there was no honor in war, in the stink of sweat and death and all the other things I would cover myself in to survive another day.

"I'll lead a squad," I said, to the surprise of my colleagues. "Though I am only a Special Jonin, I would serve Hidden Leaf to the limits of my abilities. Please, Lord Hokage, give me a chance to prove myself."

The words are awkward in my mouth, like a bite of a dry sandwich with nothing to drink, but something must have struck true with the leadership. I was a rising star, they knew. There was a lot I could teach a squad of Genin, skills I could pass on, perhaps even an heir for my summons. As a Special Jonin, I was a bit under-ranked, but exceptions have been made in the past, and the hunger in their eyes, the desperation for every leader they can find, told me I'd get the job. I could only hope to have an Uchiha under my command, who might awaken those eyes I so desperately needed, who might be someone I could bind to me with love and duty and honor and glory and all the lies that hold together our society.

The squads were larger, of course. This was war, and they'd been pushing out oversized classes of Genin for years during the run-up in hopes of squeezing every drop of talent they can from the Land of Fire's pool of would-be ninja. Left unsaid was the truth that many of my students would die, so a three-man squad would quickly fall below minimum operational size. Fifteen students they gave me, but they gave me more then students, too: to my surprise, they assigned my two former teammates from when I was a Genin to co-lead the squad with me.

"To lighten the load," he said, and expected me to believe. "We wanted to make sure your team stayed together."

"We don't trust you," he meant, but he didn't know I knew it. I wasn't a clan ninja, after all. An orphan with no ties to the village. A prodigy, yes, but with few friends other than his teammates. Not a major flight risk, no, but they wouldn't take any chances. Not with a war on, a war in which an enterprising clanless ninja might find an opportunity to defect.

Though I expected nothing of him, the caution in his actions left a sour aftertaste nonetheless.

We only had a day and a half before we move out. That evening, I went to stand at our training ground, that grassy glade with the forest and the river and all the things a young ninja might need to become something more, something greater. A place for memories, a place for sacrifice, and a place to be alone, before however many months of bunking, living, eating, and fighting alongside so many others. I'd never had peace in Hidden Leaf, but here I might find a moment of stillness. After all, if you can't find silence in the eye of the storm, where else can you look?

I should have known he'd be there too. Seated with his back against the tree, his head tilted back and his eyes closed, he looked like he had the peace I sought.

"Hakkō," he muttered, without opening his eyes. "Looks like we'll be fighting again."

Impressive. His senses clearly have gotten better, if he could feel or hear me coming from that distance without sight. I must be having an off day. I ambled over and took a seat against a tree near him.

"Not bad," I admitted.

"That I heard you coming?"

"Well, that, and the double meaning."

He grinned. "Heh, I figured you'd get the joke. Couldn't ever put one past you, could I? Though, I don't think either of us will be able to afford a fight on the trail. We'll likely have our hands full with the fifteen Genin they're giving us. _Fifteen!_ Can you believe it?"

"It's more unbelievable you're wearing the flak jacket," I replied with a snort. "I wouldn't have figured you one for armor, not with your defensive techniques. Being able to surround yourself in a barrier should be good enough, shouldn't it?"

"Only if the barrier stops everything, which it doesn't, or if I have the chakra for it, which I won't always," he pointed out. "I've got better uses for my chakra these days-summon animals."

I raise an eyebrow, though it was a useless gesture since he couldn't see. "Oh really?"

"Yeah, I'll show you on the tomorrow. They're really something. Anyways, fifteen kids, man. I really can't believe it. And I'll be teaching them all."

" _We_ will be teaching them all," I said. "And more leading than teaching. Honestly, we likely won't have much time for it what with the war, accomplishing our objectives, and trying to keep them alive. I'd be surprised if most of them survived, much less learned anything. Though, I suppose surviving a war has a way of impressing learning on someone all its own."

Silence fell in the clearing. A minute passed, then another.

"You really meant it, back then, didn't you?" His voice was strained, as though he was about to break into sobs.

I eyed my teammate. He hadn't moved, but a certain stillness was on him, like he was waiting for something. What he expected me to say, I couldn't tell you; I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. But he seemed to _want_ me to say yes, and who would I be to deny him? Still...

"I'm sorry if it came out poorly," I said, and let that sentence hang there.

"Then you did mean it," he said, his voice accusing. "Somehow-somehow you knew this would happen. Another Great Shinobi War. One as bloody-and as terrible-as the first. You always _said_ you expected another one to come, but how could I have believed you? I was just a kid, man. I didn't know about this. Hell, I'm still a kid."

"Not by shinobi standards," I grunted. "We haven't been kids for years."

"You know what I mean," he replied. "I-I haven't had a life, I haven't grown up. I wanted to see the world, to become famous, to meet beautiful women and get drunk in foreign lands, to find a wife and have kids and make my legend. And now what will become of me?"

After a moment, I realized he was sobbing. I sniffed the air, stuck out my tongue to draw in the moisture and feel of it, and realized that he was drunk, too. I must be having an off day indeed, to have been detected by a drunk ninja to not have realized sooner how drunk he was.

"You're afraid, aren't you?" I asked.

He didn't reply.

"Afraid you'll die?" I pressed on.

"No," he whispered. "Not that. Afraid… afraid you will. She will. They will. Afraid that this is it for us, and our chances. That this is the twilight of our life, the calm before the storm, and it will be the end for all of us, soon. I'm afraid of the end, Hakkō."

In this moment, I felt bad for him, and I knew I couldn't let him be. I had to reach out to him, somehow.

"Then, let me tell you a secret," I said. "And listen close, because I won't repeat this more than once. You know my name, Hakkō, with the character for star-crossed?"

"Of course I do."

"To be star-crossed is to carry the burden of fate. It means to find all the world set against you, sometimes. It means to feel the weight of the world on your shoulders and know that with one stumble it will all be over. But it also means that you have a chance, however slim, because you are 'star-crossed' and not 'doomed' by fate. And so you keep on going on. And on top of that…"

"Yeah?"

"Sometimes, that means that I'm afraid, too."

The next day, I met up with my teammates, our fifteen doomed students, and our hopeless orders for this worthless war. Genin, most of them just out of academy, with only the barest of armor and weapons. My teammates wore flak, and heavy armor would impede me more than help, but these children had made no such decisions. They came with what they had, and it wasn't much.

Looking at the team in front of me, I already knew we were in for a bad mission, for there were no clan children. No Hyuuga, Sarutobi, Uchiha, Inuzuka, Akimichi, no eyes for me to steal or bloodline limits to be leveraged in battle. Fresh, green Genin with minimal training given to three Special Jonin. Up-and-coming Special Jonin, to be sure, but not famous ones. So, we were a fodder squad. Footsoldiers. They'd expect the Genin to die off in bits and pieces, or in swathes in the great conflicts of the war, to fight and die and bleed to keep their leaders alive. Maybe a few would survive to learn what we had to teach; maybe not.

So when I unrolled our mission scroll detailing a far-forward independent border action in the Land of Rivers, I wasn't surprised. An independent unit on a border with a foreign country, undermanned and with only unblooded Genin as soldiery, we were disposable. As my squadmates grinned at the thought of frontline action, I wondered if I was the only one who understood just what we were getting into.

We were allotted two weeks for logistics and travel time. Two weeks to cover hundreds of miles, but for ninja that's manageable. No, these two weeks were to prepare. Two weeks to train these children into soldiers, two weeks harden their hearts and teach them to kill.

Two weeks to find a way to stay alive in the crucible of war.


End file.
